Chills & Thrills Paranormal Boxed Set Read Free

went off half-cocked in Tricou's café, shot
Louis Martin clean through the chest. Boy, what a mess. Pete carried Louis in,
bleating like a goat that Ankouer made him do it, blood spurting all over the
place, like to never clean it . . ."
    Zach hardly heard. His mind drifted to his teenage years. He
and Izzy paddling through the swamps, sometimes alone, but more often than not
with Jed tagging along. Lots of mischief, lots of laughs. Now he was the only
one left.
    How could that be? Sagging belly or not, he wasn't even
forty. Too young to have lost two people so close to him who were even younger.
    "Town's not the same since your folks left,"
Allain remarked. "Cannery's gone, tourists all over the place. I miss the
old days."
    Zach abandoned his trip down memory lane, and looked up.
    "Ma couldn't run the cannery herself with Pa
gone," he replied. "Too bad the buyers couldn't make a go of it.
Times change, I suppose."
    "Sure do." The doctor chuckled again, for no
apparent reason. Then out of the blue he asked, "Think we should demand an
autopsy? Get a court order, need be?"
    Zach stared at the doctor blankly, reflecting on the possibility
that the man's brain hadn't fared as well as his body. "That would just
add to Frank's grief, and he's already had enough. Besides, your toxicology
came up negative."
    "But the presence of petechiae . . ."
    "Look, Doc, I'm no coroner, but wouldn't a bit of
hemorrhaging be normal from a stroke?"
    "Not necessarily in the eyes and nose. And the same
type were found in your brother's body, and in the prisoner's."
    Zach swallowed an impatient sound and dropped his gaze back
to the notes on Izzy. "I don't want to rain on your parade, partner, but
there's only a slim connection. Not enough to warrant an autopsy. Thanks for
contacting me; but—"
    "The wake's being held right now over at Cormier's
house. How 'bout just talking to Frank? See if I'm not right about his bizarre
behavior. You could speak with the girl, too."
    Zach's head snapped up so hard the bones in his neck
cracked. "Who?"
    "Frank and Ellie's girl, Lizette I think. Yeah,
Lizette. In her mid-thirties now, but you must remember her. You used to sniff around
her enough."
    "Izzy?" Zach choked out. "No. Izzy's
dead."
    "Seems not. Drove in last night pretty as you please to
attend her mama's funeral. Care to come see for yourself?"
    The wake was abuzz with quiet speculation about Liz's
reappearance in Port Chatre and about her mother's fate in the afterlife.
Discussion ended quickly at her approach. The gossipers then turned en masse
with cautious and sympathetic smiles to rev up their Southern charm and drawl
polite questions in soft, lazy voices that never revealed their true thoughts.
    Liz pried herself loose from the latest gossip pod and had
drifted only a few feet away before the morbid topic was resumed.
    "The girl's cursed, just like her mama."
    "Not cursed, a witch. Runs in the blood."
    "I hear she rose outta her vault."
    A short, tubby man snickered uneasily. "Sure she did.
Like one of them Tales from the Crypt episodes."
    "No, no," a woman interjected, lifting her hands
and wiggling her fingers. "Ank00000r helped her."
    The snickers got louder and longer, but still sounded
spooked.
    What rubbish, Liz thought. They couldn't honestly believe
she was a zombie or that Ankouer truly existed. Judging by the anxious edge in
their laughter, it was easy to believe they did. And it didn't help any that
her father was sitting in the kitchen, telling his old cronies that Ankouer had
sent la maladie malefique to kill his wife.
    Wandering aimlessly through the spacious Cormier home,
feeling very much like the young girl she'd left behind so many years ago, she
sipped on a rum and Coke someone had pressed in her hand.
    Liquor was always present at Cajun wakes, along with
enormous platters of shrimp and crawdads and plump grilled sausage, bottomless
bowls of etouffee, and dirty rice with beans.
    Quite a feast, and one provided by the generosity